(JW and I didn't -- we had an interfaith ceremony and had to do lots of arguing to get everyone on board. From the beginning, we both agreed that we were blending our lives, and our wedding ceremony was the place to start. We both felt that if you have more than one ceremony, it's as if only one is "real" and each side can say it's theirs. While I'm reminiscing back to our engagement, the night that he proposed we also both agreed, without any prior discussion, that we wanted to get married at Manning Chapel at Brown, our alma mater. It felt like a good sign that we both had the same thoughts about our wedding, and it did turn out to presage a marriage where we're nearly always on the same wavelength about important decisions. But anyway, this post isn't about that.)
This cousin went a step further and had not only two separate ceremonies, but also two separate receptions. Two full weddings, on two consecutive nights. My side of the family descended on Charlotte, North Carolina en masse for these events.
Friday, our alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. and we had the kids in the car, headed to the airport, before 5:30. The flight was only an hour and a half and both kids were content to watch videos and chow down on snacks. (I learned that X is a big Dora fan. K eschewed the in-flight entertainment because he might see something scary, and opted instead for downloaded Jake and the Neverland Pirates episodes on JW's computer.) When we arrived, we headed for my cousin's house.
K had refused his usual pre-flight Dramamine. He was fine on the plane, but by the time we got out of the car in Charlotte, tears were streaming down his face and he looked thoroughly green. He spent the next couple of hours sobbing and pulling at his ears. Meanwhile, X managed to lock himself in one of the bedrooms. I ran back and forth between K, who was in the bathroom trying to throw up, and the half dozen relatives in the hallway attempting to pick the lock.
JW eventually managed to get the door open and rescue X. K took a long nap and felt better. The boys spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with their older cousins, and then we dressed up and went to the wedding. It turned out that the first wedding was basically for the groom's side of the family -- Western clothes, lots of Jesus talk, dry reception (which JW was pretty upset about) -- and the second wedding was the Indian wedding. The wedding was a bit of an ordeal for us and my brother and sister-in-law, since between us we had four children between the ages of 11 months and 6 years. I spent most of the time running after the kids and barely got to eat dinner, let alone watch the ceremony or enjoy the reception.Friday night my baby nephew was sick and screamed the entire night. Around 4 a.m., I got up and downloaded a white noise app. Nephew was quiet after that and our kids got up at 6, so it didn't help.
Saturday none of us had much energy. We hung out at our house all day. There were no toys, so the kids had to be resourceful. K and his cousin M colored and cut out masks, which they used to put on a play. Act 1 consisted entirely of the two of them falling down repeatedly and yelling. Act 2 featured an exciting fight scene. X spent over an hour quietly cutting pieces of paper into teeny tiny shreds, which were repurposed as snow in Act 3. The play fell apart in Act 4 when M wanted Cement Man and Goggles Ghost to fall in love and K would have none of it.Saturday night was wedding #2. My brother and I had learned a Bollywood dance for the occasion. The bride had choreographed an entire "flashmob" routine for the guests, with a step-by-step YouTube tutorial. We plotted ways to make it an actual flashmob: get everyone to jump up about 20 minutes into the ceremony and break into the dance; recruit everyone we could find at the hotel bar to run in just for the dance and leave again immediately after. But on their second night of insufficient sleep, the kids tore around the dance floor like crazy during dinner, and then we had to leave before the meltdowns got bad. It didn't end up mattering whether the wedding was "dry" or not, since the second night I think JW and I together managed to drink less than half a glass of wine. We were too busy chasing after the kids. I didn't even get to eat dessert either night. What's the point of a wedding with no ceremony (that I got to see), no dancing, and no dessert (substitute "drinking" if you are not me)? The moral of the story is: Don't bring kids to weddings, even if they are invited. I love my kids, but it wasn't their scene. The weddings would have been really fun if they weren't there.
Sunday we spent the day at my cousin's house. With the big events out of the way, this was a laid-back family reunion. It was fun. The boy cousins spent most of the time wrestling again. JW took the boys swimming and got a bad sunburn.
Sunday I also got a text from our contractor, announcing that he was going to come by on Wednesday to set things up, and that he planned to start demolition in a week so we needed to get everything out of the kitchen.
Today we flew back home and immediately started on the kitchen. Tonight we sleep in our own beds for one night. Tomorrow we head to the in-laws' house for more family togetherness -- JW's sister and her family are coming up for the week, so we're going to extend our vacation and see them. More cousins! More chaos! My sister-in-law's kids are 2 and 3, so I'm expecting a cuter yet more exhausting variety of kid chaos.
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